Libertarian video takes national debt personal

If you are finding it hard to conceptualize how much debt America is actually in, a new video puts things in perspective by making it proportional to a $50,000 annual income.

The video, put out by Learn Liberty — a website that provides education videos on libertarian ideas — shows the government’s debt is equal to a person who makes $50,000 a year spending their entire salary, and then buying a new SUV on their credit card for $38,000.

Oh, but they also bought a $30,000 SUV (I guess they didn’t have all of the upgrades) in both 2010 and 2009, after already having $222,000 on their credit card from 2008 and before.

That amounts to a total of $320,000 in debt, and with the government’s 3% interest rate, an extra $10,000 a year in interest.

Basically, this metaphorical individual would be completely screwed.

…And probably filing for bankruptcy protection.

“Our government is no different. Our government has demonstrated that it can’t be responsible with its credit card,” said Antony Davies, an associate professor of economics at Duquesne University and the speaker in the video. “It’s time to take the credit card away before it becomes impossible to pay the bills.”

When you think about this from a government standpoint, the bills become more daunting. The interest owed alone amounts to $440 billion, which is three times the annual operating expenses of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined, Learn Liberty said.

If we are going to continue to operate on this household basis, perhaps it makes sense that Republicans and Democrats are going at each other over how best to fix it instead of actually doing anything — in this situation they’d be a married couple squabbling over mounting credit card debt (I’ll leave it up to you to decide which would be the husband and which would be the wife in this situation.)

Recognize this coversation coming out of the halls of Congress?:

“This is your fault!”“No, this is YOUR fault!”“I’m the only one doing anything to fix this problem!”“Are you kidding? Have you seen all the things I’ve been doing for you lately?!”

Sounds like a marital spat to me.

In any case, martial spat or government logjam, the overwhelming amount of debt isn’t doing anyone any good.

Jessica was the resident HousingWire blogger and real estate reporter until the middle of August 2012, when she moved to New York City and a different career. She currently runs the blog Politically Inclined.

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